What is going on with the East Alton Rotary Club? We will cover it here, along with all sorts of other interesting and off-kilter stuff that will inform, enlighten and amuse you.

Monday, August 13, 2012

TODAY IN HISTORY

AUGUST 131948:Forty-two-year-old Cleveland Indians rookie Satchel Paige pitches his first complete Major League Baseball game, leading his team to a 5-0 shutout of the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park.1918: Three months before the end of World War I, Opha Mae Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps, when she and approximately 300 other women enlist in the reserves to take over clerical duties vacated by men fighting in Europe. It is not until 1967 that female Marines would be permitted to serve in war zones.1924: Vernon Dalhart records "The Prisoner's Song" as the B-side for "The Wreck of the Old 97." Dalhart's recording is the first country music release to sell a million copies; he would be posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1981.1960:The Central African Republic declares independence from France1521:Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, conquered by conquistador Hernan Cortez